


appearing young, while i'm growing older

by h_mellohi



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: (But there are three lives so it's okay), Angst, Character Death, Comfort, Crying, Crying TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exiled TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Family Dynamics, Fear, Fear of Death, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, TommyInnit is Not Okay (Video Blogging RPF), Trauma, don't worry bout it, even though wilbur isn't here, no beta we die unlike technoblade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28143750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h_mellohi/pseuds/h_mellohi
Summary: (i collapse to the floor and scream "can anybody save me from myself?") - nightmare , set it offinspired by techno and tommy's 12/17 streams, and the visit to the final control room.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Dream SMP)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 304





	appearing young, while i'm growing older

**Author's Note:**

> warning for a nightmare, panic attack, and struggles with mental health

“This way, gentlemen. I’m excited to show you…”

Dirt led into smooth stone, a long hallway the five of them walked down together, sneaking as best they could through their fits of laughter. 

_ (The voices sounded like they were underwater, and Tommy had to strain to hear them. He walked in the back, right behind Tubbo. His good friend Tubbo.) _

Gray stone turned to black bricks, a small room barely big enough for the five of them.

“This is the final room. The final control room.”

Excited chatters, joyous shouts. They were going to win. (They won.) Something was wrong. Tommy wanted to leave, but his feet kept marching forward, to the center of the room.

“What does this button do?”

_ (Don’tpressitdon’tpressitdon’t) _

Click.

“There’s nothing in the chests…”

Tommy’s lungs tightened in that squeeze just before one lets out a scream, but nothing left his mouth, only a small confused noises

_ (what’s that sound where’s wilbur  _ _ hes dead _ _ where’s tubbo  _ _ he hates you _ _ ) _

Blocks slid back, and Tommy learned what it was like to die.

_ “Down with the revolution boys. It was never meant to be.” _

With only a few strikes, Dream’s sword slashed into Tommy, cutting through his scuffed netherite and diamond armor like it was nothing. Tommy remembered his body crumpling to the ground, pain like nothing he had ever felt before, and he screamed into the dark until his throat burned raw.

He shot up in his cot, panting heavily as he worked to catch his breath, glancing wildly around the room and the yellow concrete that he had decorated the walls, and he placed a hand on his chest and tried to calm down.

An arrow plunged through his chest, and he fell into the depths once more, the fabric of his revolution uniform unraveling around him as a figure in a white mask leered over him, bow notched with another arrow as Tommy gasped for air, finding nothing left in his lungs to scream with as the poison and the arrow taught him what it was like to die a second time.

_ (Please I just want to go home I just want to have a home I miss. I miss.) _

Tommy bunched his fingers in his blanket as his eyes shot open, lips dry and eyes wet, and he looked across the room and saw his two time murderer, his friend, his enemy, his only friend, standing across from him, digging a pit into the ground.

“Into the pit.” Dream’s voice echoed in the small space, and Tommy shivered in suppressed revulsion as he began to take off the armor he didn’t remember putting on. 

“You’re going to take my last life, aren’t you?” It was a whisper, a terror, a horrified realization. “You’re supposed to be my friend, but you’re not even that, you’re just…”

“Oh, Tommy.” Dream’s voice was both scathing and sweet as he pulled out a sword and held the point to Tommy’s neck. His whole body froze. “Of course I’m going to take that last life. I just needed the opportunity.”

_ (I just want Tubbo I want my friends my family my discs i don’t want this i don’t want to die. _ )

Tears poured down Tommy’s face, but he had no response to Dream’s unspoken words. The masked man pulled the sword back, but it wasn’t to put it away, it was a swing, a thrust downward toward Tommy and Tommy stood frozen and let the man who had dictated so much of his life and so many of his deaths pull one final string.

“Tommy?”

He couldn’t open his eyes, but Tommy felt heavy, warm hands encompass his back. His body jerked in place, certain that he would at any moment feel the pain of the sword in his gut or the arrow in his chest and he would never be able to open his eyes again.

“I don’t want to die,” he choked out hoarsely, face buried in some soft familiar fabric. “Not again.”

“Oh, Tommy…” The voice was a deep rumble, full of concern, nothing like Dream’s mocking tone.

“What if he comes and kills me?” Tommy gasped through his sobs, pulling at what he knew best to calm himself. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be a stupid fucking ghost, all- all forgetful and shit like Ghostbur is.”

“Heh.” Technoblade’s shoulder rose and fell in a solitary chuckle, and when Tommy lifted his head slightly he saw the dark spot on Techno’s cloak that he had made with his tears. 

“Oh, shit, I-“ he forced himself to pull away, though he craved nothing more than the tight hug of his brother he pushed his back to the wall, looking around at the small space he had carved for himself when he thought he was hiding. A fresh torch had been placed by the wall, and from that Tommy could clearly see the concerned glint in Techno’s dark eyes. “How’d you- why’d you come down?”

“These floors aren’t that thick, Tommy. I heard you- well, screaming, or crying, or something, from up there. Thought some mobs had gotten in or something.”

Tommy’s cheeks burned with self-imposed shame. “I wouldn’t cry over a stupid zombie,” he muttered, eyes downcast in an attempted glare. 

“Alright.” Techno drawled slowly. He shifted, sitting back a bit, not taking his eyes off of the younger boy. “So what did make you, you know, like this, then.”

“Oh, I’ve always been like this,” Tommy rasped, his attempt at his usual bravado falling embarrassingly flat. “I mean, I’m not like this at all, ever.”

“Sure, I definitely believe that, I definitely did not just come down here to find you crying your eyes out over a fear of death.” 

Tommy’s jaw felt like it was wired shut with how hard he was clenching his jaw. “Shut the fuck up, Blade. If you’re just going to mock me, then go the fuck away.” 

“Hm.” Techno didn’t move.

“I’m on my last life, you know.”

“You should be more careful.”

“Well it’s not my fault!” Tommy exploded, words tumbling from his cracked lips. “I didn’t ask for a sadistic green man to target me and kill me twice and be obsessed with my fucking discs and follow me to exile and be my friend but maybe not my friend and destroy all my things and leave me alone, all the time, except for when he came because he was my- he was my friend except I can’t tell if he wasn’t or not and- and-“

“Tommy, Tommy, slow down, you’re- hey.” Tommy barely heard Techno as he tried to take a breath and failed, unable to work his lungs properly. His brother’s hand stretched out, firm and grounding on his shoulder. “Breathe, Tommy. Breathe.”

“Can’t,” Tommy muttered. “Can’t fucking breathe, why can’t I breathe?” Shouting was making him feel lightheaded, and his chest spasmed with effort. 

“Breathe, Tommy!” Techno’s voice was more insistent this time, and sounded closer, though Tommy’s eyes were too unfocused to pay any kind of attention. “Listen, ah, with me, okay? In… and out. In…”

Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, Tommy managed to get his lungs inhaling and exhaling again, exhaustion causing his body to shake as he slid further down the wall. His head brushed against something soft, and he realized with a sudden breath that Technoblade had moved up next to him at the wall, allowing him to lean on Techno. 

Tommy whispered into the dark, so quietly that he wasn’t sure Techno would hear him. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want Dream to take my last life, I don’t want-”

“You won’t.” Techno said firmly. “I’ll make sure of it okay?”

Tommy nodded tiredly, wiping away a few more tears with a slow hand. Techno didn’t say anything, no more words of encouragement or support, but he stayed, and as Tommy’s exhausted body drifted to sleep he found that, for the first time in so very long, he didn’t feel alone.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed <3 my twitter is @sbimellohi, come say hi :)


End file.
